A Pause and A Breath for Humanity

My day job is running a venture firm, my life job is trying to become a better human being. Since mid-March when Covid shut down our country, I’ve been writing a weekly letter to our portfolio CEOs and founders. Normally, it’s a confidential memo that includes updates for business strategy and pragmatic tactics for these challenging times. However, this week’s edition could not be about business and had to be about humanity. I’m grateful for our Cue Ball (name of our venture firm) community’s response to the letter, and some encouraged me to publish it. Below is a condensed and slightly modified form of the letter that was sent last Friday to our Founders and CEOs.

To our Founders and CEOs: Whether we want it or not, we have a front-row seat to history in the making and equally an opportunity to leap onto its stage and stand by its protagonists. As we witness what unfolds around us, we should pause, breathe in, and try to embrace the full significance of the voices for humanity that currently fill the air. Then we must pause again and ask, what changes and actions must we take to advance the cause? What changes and actions must I take?

The most recent protests against racial injustices, racial violence and racial prejudice have been long in the making. Perhaps the last time we saw such a defining moment was in the 1960s, when a series of great leaders, from Martin Luther King, Jr., to JFK, to Nelson Mandela, helped to change the world. Back then and now, a new energy catapulted us into a movement for greater inclusion and civil rights. But while we elected our first Black President in 2008, and by no coincidence signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law in 2009, the decades between the 1960s and today still have felt like a period, to quote Dr. King, where we have been comforted by the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism” – until just maybe, this time now. 

Yes, I am hopeful. I am hopeful because of this generation’s moral energy and positive activism that is showing up, shouting out, and standing up for what is right. And I am hopeful because of history teaching us the narratives of not just the mistakes of America, but equally and as important its resiliency and fundamental DNA for opportunity and progress. Just take a moment and think about what has happened over the last few years. We have all shared in the experience of historic shifts that positively move us one step closer to seeing each of us for what we universally are – simply human. It was just under five years ago that the Supreme Court struck down all state bans against same-sex marriage. Less than three years ago, #MeToo and #TimesUp shook our world on gender attitudes, harassment, abuse and everyday microaggressions and biases. Could we have imagined these shifts just a decade ago?

These tipping points in history of course do not happen on their own. They need leadership, they need community, they need time, and sometimes they need the combination of those things with a collective humanity rallying around a catalytic event or moment.

And now we have such a moment: a moment for humanity to start to change all the ways we choose to exclude, to profile, to hurt. Yes. Now is an opportunity to stand together as human allies for one another. Not just against the racial injustices, prejudices and violence, but also for a more shared and common future. Marshall Ganz taught me that in leadership, community organizing and movements we cannot just be clear about what we are against, but we must be clear about what we are for. Personally, I am for two specific things: first, more leadership and entrepreneurship that better reflects the makeup of our social fabric (and the opportunities within it) and second, more collaborative, dialogue, education and truth of our history and current affairs amongst all of us, but especially our youth. Being a human ally means just that. We won’t get there if there is always another human enemy. We are all in this together – Covid, racial equality, economic progress, sustainability – you name it; any major systemic issue requires a shared collective effort to change. The starting point is to desire that change and to believe that you can be part of it.

I am an optimist by nature and I believe it is a foundational prerequisite of all entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. I could not be more proud of so many of our purpose-driven entrepreneurs and founders who are looking not just to create new industries, but also to positively shift cultural attitudes while they do it. Lisa Skeete Tatum of LandIt, you are one of those entrepreneurs. Thank you so much for recently sharing your perspective of what it means as an African-American woman leader and mother to call on us all to break our silence and “lead with humanity.” 

Our venture industry rests on a premise that placing capital into inefficient or forgotten areas of the market that would otherwise be neglected can lead to positive change. Often, the industry is associated just with technology, or perhaps money, but some of the greatest opportunities for venture funding occur across a plethora of innovation deserts and overlooked founders. Over the past decade, we at Cue Ball are proud that – in a very organic fashion – we have deployed over half of our capital to support women-focused and minority ventures. We did this not because they were women- or minority-focused, but because they were great businesses with great leaders. No qualifiers needed. Period. 

Under normal circumstances, we would be hosting on Tuesday of this week our tenth On Cue private gathering where we celebrate and bring together some of the most forward-thinking, multidisciplinary, and inclusionary leaders. While Covid does not allow us to host it this year, I invite, for the first time publicly, all of you to watch our opening performance of On Cue last year that was a collaboration between MIT Media Lab’s Cortico, prodigy vocalist Daneliya Tuleshova (singing What about Us @Tuleshova_Daneliya) and the Boston Ballet to celebrate the theme of Being Human. That song choice by 13-year-old Daneliya, preceded by the almost haunting self-narratives of prejudice, and all against the backdrop of a specially commissioned dance by the Boston Ballet, still profoundly moves me. It also reminded me of the role of arts, academic institutions, and, of course, non-profits that have been so key to helping us get to this point where awareness might move to actual change.

If there is a silver lining to Covid-19, it is that it has helped demonstrate the power of our collective humanity. Ironically, by bringing to the surface some of the deep, ugly and underlying truths that have been with us for a very long time, we can see that the incremental gradualism that might have seemed tolerable to some in an uninfected, non-pandemic world is very far from enough. Covid-19 has amplified and revealed these truths, as Trevor Noah describes, as a series of dominos of racial injustice that fall, showing the breakage of our country’s social contract.

In the end, the work we do and the lives we lead should all be a means towards a larger purpose and a calling to push the world forward in better ways. Heartfelt pride to all of you for doing your part in this moment of humanity and creating so many businesses and cultures that help us come a little closer together. May we not just be better leaders for it, but better humans.

Best, 

Tony